This nurse commutes 2,600 miles to work in Oakland. Is he nuts?

When Tom Fowkes tells his friends in Pennsylvania that he commutes to work in Oakland, they all tend to react in the same way:
"You work in California? Are you nuts?!"

And he couldn't disagree more. The Kaiser pediatric nurse began his bi-weekly trip to work 9 years ago, and, he is happy to report, it "has changed my life."

When Fowkes was working as a nurse in Pennsylvania, he had to work three jobs, barely made ends meet and never saw his son because he was working all the time. Now that he works at Kaiser, he says, "I am making California money and I live very nice."

Those in the Bay Area who find it a challenge often forget wages in this region are much higher than many parts of the country. At SFGATE, we've been telling stories of locals who have moved to distant states where they can afford to buy a home, or even rent a place that doesn't cost over half their salary.

But Fowkes feels like he can have it all, the California money and Pennsylvania's cheaper cost of living. The difference in wages is so big that even with the cost of flying across country four times a month, it's a no-brainer.

"These are the highest paid nursing jobs on the planet," he says, referring to his job at Kaiser. "I make more than some doctors do back home."

He got his first taste of California several years ago when he came out on a travel assignment with an agency. After his agency job ended, a friend introduced him to Kaiser, where he had an interview and got hired the same day.

In his early days at Kaiser, he would work six -12-hour shifts in a row and then fly back to Pennsylvania for two weeks. But "that would be kind of brutal. By the sixth day, I was kind of burnt out."

At the time, he was sharing a trailer in Concord with a nurse from Mississippi. The trailer was small but all he needed was a place to sleep and shower since he was spending all his time working.

Nowadays, his schedule has softened a bit. He works 12-hour shifts on Monday and Tuesday every week and then 12-hour shifts every other weekend. It works out to 36 hours a week and after he has worked his 72 hours, he heads back to his home near Pittsburgh.

Fowkes says other nurses are living the long-distance commuter's life. On the floor he works on, Fowkes estimates that 10 percent of the workers travel from other places. Most are like him, Kaiser employees who work on a per diem basis, which gives them greater schedule flexibility but no benefits.

Fowkes took the Kaiser job for the money. But he wasn't sure he could take all the flying. "Now it has become so routine I don't even think about it," he says.

"I can't believe I've been doing it for 9 years. It seems like 4 or 5. It's changed my life. I spend more time with my son. And when I'm home and I don't work, we can do things because I have money now."

And, he adds, he also has a new $160,000 swimming pool.